The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center has officially launched its new Mobile Food Pantry.
With the goal of increasing access to healthy food, the MLK piloted the Mobile Food Pantry program in 2018, bringing food, personal care, and household items to low-income housing complexes across Newport County, where lack of transportation is a common barrier. The new mobile food pantry has refrigeration, storage, on-site data collection, and will allow the MLK to serve even more people in the community.
This initiative is made possible thanks to the generosity of underwriting donors Nancy and Doug Horsey.
“We believe that being a community center means adapting to meet the needs of the community,” said Heather Hole Strout, Executive Director of the MLK. “We didn’t want to stop at bringing non-perishables out into the community – we wanted to bring fresh ingredients like meat, milk, eggs, and produce, too. That’s where the idea for this custom Mobile Food Pantry came from. We couldn’t have done it without Nancy and Doug Horsey, who really allowed this dream come to life.”
In 2019, the MLK Mobile Food Pantry program made more than 30 site visits and served more than 900 Newport County residents
The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center’s Mobile Food Pantry visits the following Newport County locations:
Middletown: Oxbow Farms; Portsmouth: Quaker Estates; Tiverton: Hancock Estates; Jamestown: Pemberton Apartments; Newport: AHEPA Apartments, Bayside Village, Donovan Manor, Edgar Court, Festival Field and Parkholm.
The new Mobile Food Pantry will make its first visits in early 2020.
